Title

Authors

Files

Summary

Broadly speaking, our goal will be to become more effective ministers for the kingdom of God. Part of one's being an effective minister clearly includes being on firm ground oneself as to what one believes. One of the goals for our studies within PH701 will be to gain insight into the extent to which we can, and should, use reason to gain a deeper personal understanding of the God we embrace. Another part of effective ministry for the kingdom involves being able to address the concerns of those in the modern world who do not embrace Jesus Christ as Lord. This involves understanding the extent to which we can, and should, appeal to reason in offering a Christian apologetic to non-Christians that makes sense to them. One of our goals this semester will be to gain a deeper understanding of the kind of answer we as Christians are called to provide as we seek to fulfil the Biblical imperative to provide "an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have" (1Peter 3:15). Given that Asbury is a seminary in the Wesleyan tradition, we will also keep an eye toward better understanding how our own Christian background (predominantly, I presume, as Wesleyans) fits into the larger Christian tradition. Such understanding will better allow us to distinguish a non-Christian perspective from a Christian, non- Wesleyan perspective. And this is an important distinction to be able to make whenever we come across a theological idea that seems a bit foreign to us.